I recently have been working on several projects that involve Bluetooth Low Energy, a.k.a Bluetooth Smart. I was looking at using a Dialog SemiconductorDA14580 based module in an upcoming design because of its low cost, low RX and TX current and small footprint. I was curious however how the low current consumption would affect range, so I decided to run a little test using some development boards and modules I had laying around.

Mind you, this test was extremely unscientific, so take the results with a grain of salt, or rather, a whole salt shaker. I basically just spread out a bunch of boards on my desk with little regard for antenna orientation etc. and used my phone (a Nexus 5) to check at what distance I could pick up each module's advertisement signal. Distance was estimated using steps, afterward recalibrated using an aerial view and scale from Google Maps. All the modules were used at their default power settings.

Manufacturer

Module

Chip

Range (m)

BlueGiga

BLE112

CC2540

22

Microchip

RN4020

CSR1012

25

Cypress Semiconductor

CY8CKIT-142

PSoC 4 BLE

25

Panasonic

PAN1740

DA14580

14

The distance was not measured in open space, the signal originated from my desk, had to go through a wall and two metal door frames and a glass door. I also did not check if the default settings for TX power for each of the BLE modules was similar at all. As I said, a very quick test to see how the DA14580 compared to the others.

Obviously the range of this chip is less, but I was actually happily surprised to find that it worked as well as it did. I think it's a pretty decent range in far from ideal circumstances, considering the low current consumption of only 5mA in TX and RX.

So often when electronics need to be added to a project, you hear "we'll just add an Arduino". Many sensor and other breakout boards are labelled "for Arduino", even if they work just as well (or better) with any other microcontroller. Arduino sure has built up a brand that few in this space can match. Is it deserved?